Escape to the Movies: A Christmas Carol

Herr Wozzeck

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Oct 23, 2009
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Eh, I'm not really a fan of paying the extra 3.50 at the local Regal Cinemas for 3D glasses unless I know the movie's going to be very good. And just judging from the trailers I was able to tell that it was going to be a lot of excuses for there to be pointless action sequences. I mean, come on, movie, did you really have to show the Ghost of Christmas Past flying around a la Superman with Scrooge in the trailers?

Well, this just means that I'm going with Men Who Stare At Goats for my weekend movie for sure. Thanks once again!
 

blankedboy

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Feb 7, 2009
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This is my first time watching an ETTM, but I got bored after about a minute, which was about a minute after realising that all this show is is a hardly adequate rip-off of ZP.

Annoying criticism aside, the movie sucks. I haven't seen it yet, but I can gaurantee these two things:

1. It will suck.
2. Massive hordes of the common person will be crowding in to see it, then uphold it as the BUST MURVEE AHVOR.

This world dissapoints me :(
 

WhiteTigerShiro

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Sep 26, 2008
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Just to throw a question out there: Am I the only one who isn't impressed in the slightest by their "high tech" animation? Yeah great, so the character models look nice, but for all this bragging about how they have the actors act-out the parts with the motion stickers and blah blah blah... just watching the preview I felt so many Uncanny Valley moments watching awkward-looking animations. Same goes with back when they were bragging about Polar Express. If it's such a great animation style that you're using, why can I point-out so many moments just in the commercial where a character's animation looks awkward and stiff?

As for my favorite Christmas Carol (though admittedly I haven't seen a lot), I'm gonna have to go with the Muppets. And frankly it wasn't even for their part. Michael Kane played Scrooge so well that I'm convinced he could make Barney's Christmas Carol look like an Oscar winner (Note: blatant exaggeration).
 

Enzeru92

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Oct 18, 2008
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With this am more incline not to see it and it's not all because of the language i understand it perfectly well i just don't want to see another damn repeat
 

Eric the Orange

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Apr 29, 2008
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Ironically enough the version of this story that I remember the most fondly was the Mr.Magoo version. Mainly due to that fact that we had it on VHS and it was a regular part of the Christmas tradition to watch it when I was young.
 

HeadlessChicken

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Sep 10, 2008
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Need to correct myself there- 3D is one of those thangs that pops every 20 years or so and is gone in a couple of them. Fer whatever reasons of costs, comfort and such it doesn't stick around long enough to be properly tamed by most directors.

So, yeah, enjoy it while it lasts or keep hope it will be over soon. Until next time.

Add:

I think there's a version of Carol y'all missed. The Blackadder version.
 

Sovvolf

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Mar 23, 2009
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Albert finey holds a special place in my heart as Scrooge... I guess it all goes with which scrooge we grew up with... some grew up with Patrick Stewards, Micheal Cains and what not (Bill Murray doesn't count as well he's not Scrooge he's just a dickhead T.V station executive who embodies alot of similarities of Scrooge) I grew up with Albert Fineys... who's I have to watch every year as part of my mums silly family tradition of watching films that serve as notstalgia to the times were things were good in our house i.e not of her sons were getting arrested on the weekends.
 

g.sus

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Nov 3, 2009
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I have to say, I completely disagree with this review. I saw it yesterday with my younger cousins, and I was really impressed. It stayed perfectly true to the original book, the 3-D aspects were phenomenal, and Carrey did all of his parts incredibly. I don't see where Bob gets the basis for slandering the story. Sure, it's a story that has been done numerous times before, but this is by far the best rendition I've had to pleasure to see.
 

Zydrate

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Apr 1, 2009
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It's a shame to hear, but not surprising. 3d is a gimmick, and so very unnecessary.
 

kain6th

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Oct 9, 2009
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Wow, this is probably the first time Your review and Ebert's review don't match. Check his site, he gave the movie 4 stars. Now I'm really torn over seeing this or not. Maybe I better wait to hear from other people about it before I decide.
 

paragon1

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Dec 8, 2008
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Whoah, whoah, hold on a second there Bob. Patrick Stewart? Patrick Stewart played Scrooge? Where can I see that?
 

MB202

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Sep 14, 2008
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I never wanted to go see this movie... Thanks for reaffirming my opinions on it!
 

CrystalShadow

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Apr 11, 2009
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Ugh. 3d effects... The technology just isn't there yet, and the cinematography suffers because nobody tries...

As for this...?

I'm dissapointed how bad Robert Zemeckis's films have gotten. Especially since he started this whole 3d thing.

Granted, if he keeps it up, he may learn what the main flaws are...
But in the meantime, he keeps making weird messes up stuff...
Like this, and, uh Beowulf.

Meanwhile, this is the same director responsible for Forrest Gump, and Back To the Future.

How easily things can go bad.
 

DalekJaas

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Dec 3, 2008
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Well Moviebob hates it, so it must be good. I would say I'll go and see it, but I'm not interested.
 

MB202

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Sep 14, 2008
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DalekJaas said:
Well Moviebob hates it, so it must be good.
Not funny.

But then again, he watches movies all the times, so he doesn't have the same mindset of the average movie-goer.
 

DaBozz

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May 27, 2009
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Muppets will always be the best Xmas classic.
Oh and Scrooged is pretty funny, in a crap kinda way xD

but yeah, this film was doomed to fail, its a story you can't really change much...and everyone knows it by now.
 

ccesarano

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Oct 3, 2007
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The issue with Robert Zemeckis is that he seems to want all of his 3-D movies to be roller coaster theme park rides (though I admit to enjoying Beowulf, but that was written by Neil Gaiman and pulled a rather interesting twist in the latter half I enjoyed while everyone else hated it). Polar Express is a movie my niece asks for every Christmas, but God damn if it isn't boring as Hell. It's just a bunch of kids that have another roller coaster every ten minutes, as if the fact that it's in hyper-realistic-uncanny-valley-3D will somehow give you butterflies in your stomach.

One glance at the trailer for Scrooge and hearing Robert Zemeckis made me nod my head and say "yeah, that's going to be the same exact thing". It sounds like it as well.

It's sort of like George Lucas, where you go to check out the guy's original "masterpieces" that were so much better, but you can also see the seeds of what would go wrong. In fact, special effects are pretty much the killing point in any of these directors, as the limited technology kept them from being as large a bunch of special effects whores as they truly wished to be.

Still, Robert Zemeckis just doesn't carry the same weight he used to...though I still say Beowulf was a pretty good film.